


For Fear the Squirrels Know

by Omnicat



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Canon Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-30
Updated: 2010-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnicat/pseuds/Omnicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna comes to visit Ginny the day after her brothers have left for Hogwarts. // cutesy kiddy gen</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Fear the Squirrels Know

The second of September was a mild, windy day. Ginny Weasley’s coat was open to the pale sunlight and pleasant breeze, even though she knew her mother would scold her if she saw. She stood bent over a rhododendron and half-heartedly pushed the thick clusters of leaves apart. Between locking herself up in her room to mope and making a start at degnoming the garden, her mother figured this was the better alternative.

Ginny had therefore continued her moping in the garden.

One particularly lazy gnome and a shallow bite later, her mother called her back.

“Ginny! Ginny, Luna Lovegood’s here for you. Go play with her,” she added encouragingly as Ginny came trudging back with the same pout she’d worn all morning.

“What about the garden?”

“Oh, I’ll take care of that. You go have fun, dear.”

And so Ginny dragged her feet on to the front door, where the closest thing she had to a wizarding neighbour was waiting for her, long blonde hair windswept and big blue eyes straying from one doorpost to another for no reason Ginny could discern.

“Hey, Luna.”

“Hello, Ginny.” Luna’s eyes stopped moving when they landed on Ginny, but didn’t focus. “I came to see if the buzzbeast had come for you.”

A blush spread from Ginny’s neck all the way to her cheeks. She pouted again. “There is no buzzbeast. You made it up.”

By way of disagreement, Luna dipped her pale head toward each of her shoulders in turn. Ginny was used to such behaviour from Luna, and ignored it.

“No, it’s real. Daddy told me how to tame it. They’re very shy - you need to -”

“I know, I know,” Ginny interrupted, sitting down on the porch beside a rusty kettle. Luna followed suit. “I did it just like you said. I put the blueberry muffins and the purple marbles on the sidewalk at the corner of the street and pointed Mum’s wand in every direction, but it didn’t appear.” She folded her arms around her knees and rested her chin dejectedly on top of them. “I’ll never get to Hogwarts.”

“I wouldn’t say that so loudly if I were you,” Luna mused dreamily.

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“The squirrels might hear you.”

“What squirrels?”

“Any squirrels.”

Ginny looked across at Luna oddly. “What _about_ squirrels?”

“If they find you saying such things they’ll steal your exaggeration and make it real.”

“Bollocks.”

“No, it’s true.”

“My brother Charlie is studying at Hogwarts and he says it’s not,” Ginny said impatiently.

“He’s wrong,” Luna said serenely. If she’d sounded smug or vengeful Ginny might have had to pinch her for Charlie’s sake, but she didn’t. Ginny liked that about Luna, odd as she was. “Squirrels are actually very friendly and helpful creatures, just clumsy. When they know you feel that way and you sound like you mean it and won’t change your mind, they’ll make it so the mondywodds won’t take you away for lying.”

Suddenly she stood up and walked off. “Come, this way, I’ll show you something.”

“Where are we going?” Ginny asked, following the other girl off the Weasley property and along the path that led into the fields. Without answering, Luna brought her farther and farther, away from the village and both of their homes. After a while she pushed through a hedge, and they continued up a wooded slope Ginny was only dimly familiar with. When they’d crossed a fallen log, Luna beckoned that they should continue on their knees from then on. Ginny knew better than to ask why, but did repeat her earlier question: “Where are we going?”

“Shush. We mustn’t let the squirrels know we’re here.”

“Why? Would they steal this too?”

“Yes.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, but dutifully crept along.

“Here we are,” Luna said eventually. She stood and twirled, like a somewhat graceless dancer, into a small clearing, the hair fanning out around her head reaching almost as far as her arms.

Ginny followed her, stomped her feet to shake leaves and twigs from her clothes, and looked around with a frown. “There’s nothing here.”

“I know,” Luna said. She turned her face up and closed her eyes. There was an odd little smile on her lips, and she had yet to lower her arms. “I wanted us to pick flowers and make each other pretty, but it’s barren here.”

As if on cue, the foliage around them promptly started shaking and buzzing, and there emerged a swarm of fairies the size of which Ginny had never seen before. Her vision was filled with every colour of the rainbow, her ears with their high-pitched voices, and before she knew what was happening a swarm of fairies was circling around her and landing on her arms and legs, head and chest, grabbing hold of her hair and her clothes. Ginny shrieked with laughter; their little wings tickled, and they were _everywhere_.

Ginny looked over at Luna, who held contentedly still while the fairies landed and jumped and tumbled around trying to make her as pretty as possible. Laughter overcame Ginny again and she shook from head to toe, shaking off a good portion of her own fairies in the process. Their places were quickly filled again.

Not being able to go to Hogwarts was the last thing on her mind that afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> To quote the passages in _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ that inspired this: “The fairy is a small and decorative beast of little intelligence. Often used or conjured by wizards for decoration, the fairy generally inhabits woodlands or glades.”, and “It has a quarrelsome nature but, being excessively vain, it will become docile on any occasion when it is called to act as an ornament.” Somehow I find this hilariously funny.
> 
> Comments on older fics will ALWAYS remain welcome.


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